Bonus Section

Same scenario conditions as listed earlier, except we're using a Special Forces Soldier with 24% AR Damage and a Tiger. Please keep in mind that

The 'variables' are the headshot % and whether the 30% damage buff (from 5 headshots in a row) is active: Best in slot perks (for headshot %) are still used on the weapon

The Tiger only deals maximum damage from 0 to 3 tiles(1536 range). Damage drop off starts after this distance. At a distance of 7 tiles (3584 range) the tiger is only dealing 70% of its maximum damage.

Discussion

Tank Penny (and by extension constructors) are now able to put out a very respectable amount of melee damage, considering how much utility value they also bring due to being a Constructor

Melee heroes put out a very respectable amount of damage compared to the effort it takes to play the melee hero (just look at the numbers compared to Special Forces)

I'd like to thank /u/Magyst (and the developers) for whatever discussions took place to get such a great turn around compared to patch 4.2 numbers

Quick Notes

Harvester is still stuck using an Elegant Scythe (since Neon and Reaper are locked to energy), so she doesn't have a chance to use a fast weapon

Deadly Blade will put out more DPS than Harvester with a fast weapon, less DPS with a slow weapon

There's a bunch of concepts like 'time/hits-to-kill', 'overkill' and 'opportunity cost' that are hard to define surrounding melee that would justify the use of a slow weapon on Deadly Blade (small dps loss, significant gains in other areas and better off overall)

Ninja Specific Notes

Being a Melee Ninja doesn't exclude you from using abilities, it just means you're not heavily invested in them. Abilities like Dragon Slash are still more than strong enough to clear out the majority of the fodder husks.

With the post 4.4, melee Ninjas are significantly better than the ability Ninjas in general purpose scenarios since they're not completely dependent on their abilities.

Try to melee down something like a blaster, or a smasher with an ability ninja, then do it with a melee ninja and you'll see a world of difference.

Conclusion

In a post 4.4 world, melee builds offer the most performance for the least effort as far as damage is concerned. Look at Special Forces vs Deadly Blade, the Special Forces needs to be getting close to 60% headshots within 3 tile range of a target to out perform the Deadly Blade (and more if they're bad at hitting headshots in a row). If you're the type of player who has never tried melee before, or you rely on bodyshots more than headshots (and thus use crit builds on weapons) the current state of the game is the perfect time to try out melee. You don't need to reload, your weapons don't lose durability if you don't hit anything and keeping a 'safe distance' (you can attack husks, they cannot attack you) is a lot easier than having to aim for headshots.

Ranged weapon users still technically have a higher performance potential, but to reach that you need to have 100% accuracy, a very high headshot % and be close enough that your weapons don't get damage fall-off (which, for most ranged weapons is from 0 – 2 tiles away, which is insanely close).

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The following analysis compares Deadly Blade vs Harvester for 'single target' damage output under boss conditions (i.e. attacking a mini-boss). The following assumptions/conditions hold true Each Ninja will use a Sword/Scythe (based on their respective specialisation) The Scythe is a 'Reaper Scythe', the Sword is a 'Stormblade': These weapons are both 'default' collectables with…

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